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Mara's Torment - Dexterity releases today!

Following up on his debut album with AtmoWorks, Rik Maclean aka Mara' Torment, brings you dexterity, a collection of some very suspenseful and suspended states of ambient exploration. Minimal in composition, dense in emotion, and drenched in atmosphere, Dexterity delivers an album's worth of some very intriguing music.

We're thrilled to welcome mara's torment back for their second release with AtmoWorks in 2009, "dexterity". Following up on the ten-year anniversary release of "across for show", Rik Maclean returns with "dexterity", a five-song EP of brand new material. Rik had this to say about the release.

"On 'dexterity', the second release by mara's torment on the AtmoWorks label, rik maclean presents a new collection of songs inspired by decay, deterioration, and how we respond emotionally to these changes. Where previous music by mara's torment has explored the creation of atmosphere and space, "dexterity" explores the passing of time, music that studies the progressive decline of shapes and forms, and how we handle that decline."

Analog sweeps, gently pulsing drones and subtle variations of texture, balance and pitch weave through this 38 minute, 5 song set. Fans of Rik's earlier works are sure to enjoy this latest release and "dexterity" presents an ideal entry point into Rik's body of work for those who might not have made his acquaintance. We're thrilled Rik is back on AtmoWorks, and are proud to present "dexterity"

In Rik's own words concerning his Mara's Torment project;

mara's torment is the performance name of rik maclean, a Toronto based musician who has been releasing music since 1997. mara's torment's work is often described as ambient or chill and has earned maclean some small following amongst people that like that sort of thing, often characterized by wearing black turtlenecks, disliking the use of capitals in proper names and having a questionable sense of punctuation. It has been said that the music of mara's torment studies the darker side of the human psyche, creating a tapestry of feeling using the threads of emotions we all share but rarely discuss. To be honest though, that's really just a pretentious way of saying that "rik is a guy that makes music alone in the dark in his bedroom". Yes, both are equally dramatic, but the first statement gives a sense of being enigmatic, and damnit, being enigmatic is cool, right? Right. At least it is amongst the turtleneck crowd…